


As Good As A Rest

by flamewarrior



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M, San Francisco
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-25
Updated: 2006-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-13 07:03:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/134328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flamewarrior/pseuds/flamewarrior
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Neville has a mission. Malfoy has a routine. They could both do with a change.</p>
            </blockquote>





	As Good As A Rest

**Author's Note:**

  * For [irana](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=irana).



His suave assurance seems to desert Malfoy utterly on the dance floor. Neville watches as arms jut out at angles and hips swing from side to side, apparently without rhythm. He shakes his head and puts down his empty glass.

Easy does it.

Multi-coloured lights pick out detail from the crowd at random. Neville glides to where the lights converged, not quite in the centre of the floor, and begins to dance. The movement starts in the soles of his feet: a stretch of toes, feeling the vibrations through the floor. Then his knees join in, hips not far behind, caressed into motion by bass guitar and high hat. The deep voice of the singer calls his spine into the action. His arms hold the space around him, describing the phrasing of the music, the meaning of the words in economical movements.

He closes his eyes enough that in the weird light of the club an observer would think him lost in the rhythm. He turns slightly and watches Malfoy through his slitted lids. Malfoy is looking in his direction.

Good.

The song is coming to an end and Neville presses his advantage, dancing towards Malfoy and opening his eyes to hold Malfoy's own. Soon he is so close to Malfoy that he knows he must be filling his field of vision but for the coloured lights, which will be creating halos through his hair. Neville leans down to speak into Malfoy's ear.

"Hello. Buy me a drink?"

Malfoy's fingers grip Neville's right bicep to prevent him moving away, and he brings his own lips in close, breath vibrating the fine hairs over Neville's ear.

"Why bother with foreplay?"

Malfoy tries to get his other hand in between the two of them, but Neville hooks both his thumbs into the belt-loops at the back of Malfoy's jeans, creating a barrier with his arms. He returns his lips to Malfoy's ear and intersperses words with the drag of his bottom lip against Malfoy's skin.

"Maybe I want more of you than a hand job on the dance floor or a quick fuck in the loos."

Malfoy's response is immediate, his hands hooking around Neville's elbows and his thumbs pinching sensitive flesh.

"What makes you think more’s on offer?"

Neville holds Malfoy close, despite the other man's efforts to create space between them.

"I've been watching you. You go through man after man, night after night, but you never seem satisfied. You might think you don’t want it, but I know you need someone who can keep you going _all night_."

Neville pulls back slightly, licking Malfoy's neck with the broad flat of his tongue, relishing the shudder that passes through Malfoy's form. He looks Malfoy full in his shell-shocked face for a second, then releases his hold, turns around and strolls back through the dancing bodies.

As he begins once more to move in rhythm, Neville doesn't allow his shoulders to collapse or his breath to leave him in a rush as he wants to. He simply continues to dance as if his little exchange with Malfoy never happened. He can collapse in a heap all he wants when he gets to his hotel room - unless Malfoy takes the bait tonight, but that is far too much to hope for.

Neville gives what he hopes is a smouldering look over his shoulder, blending it smoothly into his dance moves. Malfoy is still watching.

======================

"It's a very important mission, Longbottom. I'm sure you won't let us down."

The look on Laxon's face and the tone of his voice said the exact opposite, of course. Neville was used to it by now, so he kept his mouth shut, lowered his eyes and nodded. No-one in Magical Law Enforcement understood him - _lacks ambition_ they said to one another behind their hands, _a pale shadow of his parents_.

Neville’s attitude made his boss exceedingly nervous; that and the fact that Neville was a decorated war hero, whereas rumour had it that the end of the war had come just in time to prevent Laxon from joining the Death Eaters. The rumour was unsubstantiated, of course, but Laxon obviously felt the need to stamp his authority on his role.

"Yes, sir. Will that be all?"

A hand waved vaguely in the direction of the door, and Neville turned and left the plush office. As he walked down the corridor to his own cubby hole, he looked on the bright side. He'd been refused every application for leave that he'd put in over the past eight months and here he was being sent on an extended holiday, wherever in the world he chose to search, on full pay.

He smiled to himself. He knew the mission wasn't high priority, and that Laxon didn't expect him to complete it. It was just a way to keep him safely out of sight and out of mind while promotions were being decided. Neville didn't want a promotion, but he desperately needed a holiday.

======================

The first time Neville caught up with Malfoy was in San Francisco. He'd only been looking for him for a week, following leads that should have dried up years ago.

Obviously, his hunch had been right. Wizards were so stupid sometimes. Malfoy was hiding in the _Muggle_ world; approaching him wearing a cloak and pointed hat, wand waving, was hardly going to encourage him to wait around to see what you wanted.

The only magic Neville had used, other than the Portkey that got him across the Atlantic and the States, was a rock solid Glamour, and only on his face and hair. He allowed himself a moment of self congratulation, then stepped into the café.

Malfoy was already seated, hand wrapped round a huge caffe latte in a tall, clear glass. With his other hand he was running a finger down a column of newsprint. He looked like he was settled in for a while, so Neville allowed his eyes to wander around the room. There was plenty to look at.

Contemporary paintings covered the walls, just above eye height, and a few inches above the hanging rail, masks of all kinds jutted from the walls, empty eyes regarding the room. They should have been sinister, given his background, but Neville found them rather jaunty, with their bright colours and bizarre shapes.

He walked nonchalantly over to the counter, flicking his eyes over to Malfoy’s table every now and again. The young man behind the counter smiled expectantly. Neville looked over the top of his dreadlocks at the menu board.

“Um… I’ll have a decaf mocha and a… er… an avocado salad, please.”

“Comin’ right up.”

Neville watched as the young man prepared his coffee, fascinated by his hair. It wasn’t a style he’d seen very often in Wizarding Britain. In fact, he could only remember seeing it once, on one of Dean’s Muggle brothers. He realised what a yokel he must look, gawping like that, and quickly turned his attention to studying the muffins in the glass cases to either side of the cash till.

“There ya go. One decaf mocha.” A tan-dark arm pushed a white mug towards him. “That’s six dollars and fifty cents.”

Neville fumbled for his wallet and handed over a ten dollar bill. The waiter handed him his change and Neville, remembering his manners, dropped three quarters in the tip jar. He was rewarded with a smile.

“Thank you. Sugar and cinnamon and the rest are just over on that table to your left. Take a seat and I’ll bring your salad right over.”

Neville nodded his thanks and took the mug in his left hand, stuffing his wallet back into his trouser pocket with his right. Over at the battered little wooden table, he considered the shakers of sugar, cinnamon, chocolate flakes, nutmeg, chilli and more. He took his time, havering between the nutmeg and the chilli to buy himself time. Malfoy was sitting just a few feet away from him, still running his long, pale finger down the newspaper columns, strands of hair falling forward on either side of his face.

Neville took a longer look at the newspaper. The top of every page announced _The Bay Bugler: serving our magical community since 1835_. Neville froze, then scanned the room nervously. What did Malfoy think he was doing? What if the Muggles noticed?

But then it occurred to him – as far as he knew the US didn’t even have a Statute of Secrecy. He shrugged to himself, sprinkled his coffee liberally with cinnamon and took a table in the centre of the café, his back to the door. It made him uncomfortable and went against all his training, but it was the only free seat from which he could see Malfoy clearly without making his attention obvious. And it wasn’t as if anyone was after him, not any more.

Neville took a sip of his mocha. Oh, Lord, that was good, he could get used to that. His reverie was interrupted by the young Chinese-looking man who had served him placing a very large salad bowl in front of him. Neville looked at it. He caught the sleeve of the man as he was turning away.

“Um, I think there’s been a mistake. I only ordered a salad for one.”

The waiter smiled at him, all white, even teeth.

“Sure, that’s right. Avocado salad for one.”

Neville blinked at him and dropped his sleeve.

“Oh. Um. Thank you.”

The waiter went back to his post behind the counter. Neville looked back at his salad, then smiled. This assignment was feeling more like a holiday by the moment.

======================

Over the next week, Neville discovered that Malfoy kept to a routine. He left his house at eight in the morning and went for a run in the park. Then he went home, presumably to shower and change, emerging an hour later immaculately but modestly dressed, a newspaper under his arm. He would stroll up the hill to Haight Street and pick up a bagel which he ate on the way to the café where Neville had first caught up with him. He had a leisurely coffee and read every page of the _Bugler_. Lunch was at one of the restaurants close by – Thai or Mexican or Ethiopian – then he would get on one of the funny little single decker buses with concertinaed middles.

For a while, that was all Neville knew. It took him a couple of days to do more than stand at the bus stop and watch the Muggles getting on and off, trying to work out what they did to pay the fare. The first day he watched for a while, then headed back down the hill to the big Eucalyptus trees, spending a happy couple of hours in their presence. Then he walked along to the park where Malfoy took his morning run, and kept going until he was surrounded by green and growing things.

The second day, he thought he understood how to pay, so he gave it a go. He got on, pushed a dollar bill and two quarters into the machine, took his flimsy ticket and sat down. He felt like wiping his forehead in relief that he’d got it all right first go. Another bit of his unofficial holiday was set in train. It was a shame the seats were so uncomfortable.

He sat, watching the garrulous strangers around him and the buildings passing in the windows until he thought he’d better get off or he may never feel his bum again. He wandered the streets, busy with cars and people and shops, until he found himself in front of a large building which announced itself as ‘MOMA’.

Neville shrugged to himself and set off up the steps. Why not? he thought. You never know, this might be just where Malfoy spends his afternoons. Or maybe not, but it was as good a reason as any.

Once inside, Neville found himself more than a little disconcerted. Not only did the paintings and sculptures not move, they were… the only word Neville could find for them was _bizarre_. Garish paintings of mushrooms with faces, words in glowing colours sticking out from the wall, shiny sculptures of girls with huge eyes and, well, other attributes.

Neville wandered around the galleries, boggle-eyed. Then, after a climb up some more stairs, he reached a gallery that had a quieter feel to it. There was still the oddness of immobility, but the subjects of the paintings were more recognisable, and even the abstracts were oddly peaceful.

Neville turned a corner and sat down on a bench in front of a canvas that covered the entire wall before him. It was the simplest artwork he’d yet seen – just white and grey and a mauve-y sort of red, roughly painted onto the canvas – but there was something compelling about it. He found his breathing slowing down and a blessed stillness creeping over him.

He sat there for a very long time.

======================

On the third day, he took a fortifying breath and followed Malfoy onto his bus. It was a different route than the one Neville had taken the day before, and quite a long ride. Eventually, though, the bus stopped on a wide street and Malfoy got off. He wrapped a cotton scarf tight around his throat and hunched his shoulders against the breeze; Neville wondered if Malfoy’d always had a preference for warm climates, or if it was just that he’d been living in California for too long.

As they walked, Neville gazed around him, doing his best not to look as though he was following anyone. The people in this area seemed to like rainbows a lot. Malfoy turned to his left, into yet another eating establishment. This one had a long window looking out onto the street. Neville sighed. He really wasn’t ready for more food yet.

He ordered and sat down at the other end of the café to Malfoy, facing the street. The bar over the road had a roof terrace covered in plants, most of them tropical-looking. Neville wondered, wistfully, if he’d ever have the opportunity to follow Malfoy into there.

Thankfully, he didn’t have to order any food to justify his seat. Malfoy didn’t stay long. In fact, Neville had only got halfway through his chai when Malfoy rose, smiling, to exchange a brief kiss with another man. Neville was transfixed. The kiss was nothing really, a mere brushing of lips, but in Neville it opened up something that had been shut away for years.

He hadn’t thought of it in so long, those months when he’d lived as if in a waking dream, sustained from day to day by white blond hair passing him in the corridor, the stretch of a pale neck over the breakfast table, a glimpse of a bobbing Adam’s apple. It hadn’t just been Potter who was obsessed with Malfoy, that year.

Neville blinked, returning to the present. Malfoy was still smiling at the young man standing next to his table, listening, interrupting, talking with his hands. He pulled a five dollar bill out of his pocket, waved it to catch a waiter’s attention, and left it on the table. The two men left the café together, and Neville watched them go.

======================

It took another three weeks before Neville managed to fully document Malfoy’s routine, his regular haunts in the afternoons, evenings and nights. (Malfoy did, it turned out, visit MOMA on occasion, and spent a good ten minutes on each visit sitting in front of the painting Neville had so liked.) Malfoy, Neville discovered, had a wide circle of friends with whom he met in the cafés and bars around the Castro district. He was also quite the clubber.

Neville didn’t enjoy the atmosphere of the clubs Malfoy frequented; they were too loud, too smokey and the men had hungry eyes. None of them were places Neville would have chosen to spend his time if this really had been a holiday. But he made the most of the situation, indulging in the one pleasure he was willing to indulge to which the clubs gave him ready access. He danced.

It took him a while to get used to the Muggle music, but once he realized that rhythm, melody and harmony were the same regardless of magic, he let them in, absorbed them through his feet and his gut, into his head and his hands and his hips, and let them carry him. It wasn’t long before some of those hungry eyes were fixed on him.

Neville had never been propositioned before. It was a novel and entirely disconcerting experience. He missed the more subtle cues: the body language, the glances. He also missed the more obvious ploys of dancing close, offering drinks or other intoxicants. The latter nearly got him into hot water, as, in a quieter corridor behind the bar, a tongue not his own chased a mouthful of aromatic smoke between his lips.

“What’s an innocent like you doing in this den of iniquity?” the owner of the tongue said, once Neville had made plain his lack of interest. “You need someone to look after you.”

Neville gave a nervous laugh as the other man winked, prised his joint from between Neville’s tense fingers, and walked away. Neville closed his eyes and let his head fall back against the wall. He could feel his pulse beating hard in the skin at the base of his throat.

One stiff drink later, carefully bought with his own money, Neville was back on the dancefloor. But he couldn’t lose himself in the music quite as he had, self-conscious now about what messages he might be giving out. He kept part of his attention detached from the music, from his own movements, alert to the men around him. That was how he noticed Malfoy.

Neville regularly looked Malfoy’s way, of course, when he wasn’t on the dancefloor. He had been shocked at how easy Malfoy was, disappearing off, it seemed, with any man who offered. He’d be back at the edge of the dancefloor ten minutes later, watching the dancers, waiting to be approached. It struck Neville as odd that Malfoy always waited to be propositioned, that he never took the initiative – disappointing, somehow.

What Neville noticed that night, though, was the way that Malfoy watched particular dancers with more care than others. Malfoy’s eyes were narrowed, a glass of something clear held up to his mouth. He didn’t drink from it, just held it there, making his expression hard to read. But Neville could still see where Malfoy’s eyes were focused, because they were gazing at him.

======================

It had taken a few days for the plan to form in Neville’s mind. He was here on an assignment, after all, even if he’d been treating the visit as an extended holiday at the Ministry’s expense. The rest of that night in the club he’d spent in a dark corner, observing Malfoy’s behaviour more closely.

Neville’s earlier conclusions had been correct: Malfoy said yes to every man who approached him for sex. But what Neville hadn’t noticed before was that the men who approached him were always the ones Malfoy had been watching. The realisation came, for some reason, as a relief to Neville, although it also worried him. Could Malfoy be casting Imperius just to have sex with the men he fancied? It was a disturbing thought.

But it also didn’t fit with the rest of Neville’s observations. Malfoy was self-contained and relaxed, cheerful when around his friends, with not a hint of malice in any of his actions, however morally dubious Neville might find them. There was no sign of the superiority complex and bullying that Neville remembered from school. Perhaps the men he watched were simply better at picking up subtle cues than Neville?

That Malfoy had been watching him left Neville feeling both nervous and flattered. He hadn’t thought about his adolescent crush on Malfoy for years until the other day, but being singled out for attention like that, even in his somewhat Glamourised form, was a boost to Neville’s self-esteem.

The idea started as a daydream: what if Neville acted on Malfoy’s offer? That was, he realized, what Malfoy’s concentrated gaze was intended to communicate. Neville didn’t normally engage in one night stands, especially not the ten-minute variety Malfoy seemed to prefer. Neville liked long nights of leisurely love-making – not romantic necessarily, but unhurried, sensual.

A reckless desire seized Neville, one that had been growing in him since the beginning of the assignment; the desire to say to life, when it offered him what he wanted, not ‘maybe’ or ‘oh no, I couldn’t possibly’, but ‘yes’.

======================

Neville is on the dancefloor again, letting the music carry him away. Most of him: the part that remains pays close attention to Malfoy. He is in his usual spot on the edge of the dancefloor, mouth covered from view by his glass, eyes narrowed. Neville dances closer, brazenly returning the gaze.

It is the fifth time they have performed this cat and mouse, though who is the cat and who the mouse Neville no longer knows, nor does he care. He has become intoxicated by the game, and in this space, the theatre in which they play, its resolution is all that matters.

Malfoy puts his glass down on the small table next to him and steps onto the dancefloor. He looks Neville in the face. Neville is surprised into stillness by the look on his face, lips lightly pursed, a small furrow between his brows. Malfoy’s hand grips the back of Neville’s neck and fine hairs tickle his cheek as Malfoy’s voice buzzes in his ear.

“Yes.”

The jolt that shoots through Neville at the word multiplies on the taxi ride to his hotel. A whole colony of electric charges run through his body as he and Malfoy devour one another’s mouths on the back seat.

In his room, Neville slows the pace, pushing Malfoy down to sit on the bed and stripping for him slowly, dancing backwards and laughing when Malfoy reaches forward to speed things along.

Then kissing, more kissing, his tongue languid in Malfoy’s mouth, his hands pushing up cotton and opening button and zip to caress bare skin. It’s just as Neville had dreamed it would be, back when he dreamed of it. He empties his mind and becomes a body, being physical with another’s body.

He laughs again as the words of a Muggle poet sing in his head.

“I’m glad this is… ah… amusing you oh god yes.” Malfoy raises his head from where it is resting on a pillow. “Can’t we hurry this up a bit?”

“No, Ma… mmmm. No, we can’t, we really, really can’t.”

Neville’s heart beats faster at his almost-mistake. He is saved from making any others by the fact that he has no more need for speech that night.

======================

They fall asleep as the first light of dawn begins to show around the edges of the curtains. Neville is as good as his word – he has kept Draco going all night. Neville wakes again an hour later, his body set in its ways.

Draco’s hair is fanned out on the pillow and half covering his face. Neville gazes at him, thinking how healthy he looks, how peaceful, how fulfilled. His mouth turns down at the corners as he thinks of what he is about to do. He cannot think of the man lying beside him as a surname, an assignment after the last few hours they have spent together. He is a human being, a man, a lover.

Neville has never deliberately betrayed another person in his life.

He watches Draco sleep quietly beside him as dawn progresses into sunrise and the sounds of the world rising for the day drift into the room. Draco could wake at any moment, and Neville knows he cannot put off the deed any longer.

He reaches down into the pile of clothes beside the bed and pulls his wand from a pocket hidden in the leg of his trousers. Wordlessly, he removes the Glamour he has been wearing, then Transfigures his socks into thick satin ribbons, black and sleek in the dim light.

Draco’s hands are already flung up above his head. He shows no sign of waking as Neville spells one of the ribbons to tie them gently together at the wrist. Neville’s fingers brush the hair back from Draco’s face. A raw, wounded sensation floods Neville’s chest, beneath his breastbone. His fingers brush again and he watches how hair moves and eyelids flicker. Two seconds later and the second ribbon has become a blindfold.

Draco finally stirs, registering his situation with a twist of his wrists and a half-hearted tug at his bonds. “You’re insatiable,” he mumbles, and Neville cannot resist brushing against those lips with his own. He gasps as Draco’s teeth latch onto his lower lip and allows himself to forget, for the moment, why the shining, black bonds are there.

He nips and bites his way down Draco’s chest, pulling on the pale hairs curling down from his belly button until the skin rises up in tiny, painful points.

“Ah, you bastard! Oh, mmmm, yeah.”

Draco’s protests become sounds of pleasure when Neville releases the hairs and licks the head of Draco’s cock into his mouth. Its scent is rich and heavy in his nostrils, its taste makes Neville’s mouth water and he sucks, filling first one cheek then the other with soft, rigid weight of it. Neville so wants to chew, but satisfies himself with a graze of molars against skin.

When Draco comes, Neville swallows and holds on, one arm around each of Draco’s thigh. Tears well in his eyes. He doesn’t want to let go, and remains between Draco’s legs, suckling on the softening cock until Draco asks him to stop.

“Do I get released from my captivity now?”

Draco says this with a smile, hands still over his head, though he could bring them down and remove the blindfold if he chose. Neville sighs and frowns.

“Not quite yet. I’ve got something else to give you first.”

He does his best to keep his voice light and playful.

“My god, you’ve still got something more to give me? I’m impressed, very impressed. I might even ask for your number later.”

Neville tries to laugh. He knows it’s the right response, but he can’t give it. Instead, he reaches down into his clothes again and draws out a folded piece of parchment.

“You might not like this.”

“No?” Draco grins. “Try me.”

Despite the ache in his chest, Neville does laugh at that. He stretches his body out on top of Draco’s, feeling every point at which their bodies contact. Skin on skin.

He kisses Draco’s mouth, drawing it out, letting silent tears slip from the corners of his eyes. Still kissing, he presses the parchment into Draco’s palms with one hand, while with the other he flicks his wand and sticks Draco’s hands to the bed.

“I’m sorry, Draco.”

He whispers and sighs into Draco’s mouth, one of his tears falling onto Draco’s tongue. Draco is suddenly very still. Neville rises swiftly, aware that Draco’s legs are still free. He doesn’t want to be in kicking range. He dresses himself in the quiet, his shoes uncomfortable on his feet without socks.

“Who are you?”

Draco’s voice is loud and cracks in the middle of his question. Neville closes his eyes. He takes a deep breath through his nose. Draco deserves this much.

“Neville Longbottom.”

“Who?”

Neville speaks a little louder, a little more clearly, “Neville Longbottom,” and Apparates away. Through the discomfort of his journey, all he can think is what a coward he is.

======================

When Neville returned to the office, he found that Laxon had been promoted, which Neville thought was a disaster for the Ministry, but was certainly a boon for him. He still had his cubby hole – no surprise there – but his new boss more than made up for it.

“Hey, Nev mate, how’re you doing?”

“Seamus! What are you doing here?”

“Oh, you know, this and that.”

Seamus handed him a mug of coffee and made himself another.

“Come down to my new office and we’ll have a catch up.”

“You’re working here now?”

Neville followed Seamus down the corridor.

“Hang on, Seamus, the only office down here is Laxon’s.”

“Not any more.”

Seamus opened the door to the manager’s office, and beckoned Neville in.

“Wow, Seamus, you’ve gone into management?”

Neville sat down in an armchair much more comfortable than the one that used to be there.

“It had to happen some day. We’ve got another babby on the way – I’m happy to get out of active service for more time wi’ me kids.”

“How’s Lavender?”

“Oh, blooming.” Seamus grinned. “And what about you – anything on the romantic horizon?”

Neville took a sip of his coffee, hiding his mouth behind his cup. He closed his eyes and remembered the coloured lights flashing off Malfoy’s glass.

“Nothing, really.”

“Ah, there’ll be someone someday.”

Neville made a noncommittal sound.

“Nice job you did getting the parchment to Malfoy. MLE’d been trying to get that pardon to him for years.”

Neville looked down and shrugged.

“It was nothing, really. I quite enjoyed myself out there.”

“Looks like Malfoy’s been enjoying himself since he came back from the States.”

“He’s back?” Neville looked up, eyes wide with surprise.

“Don’t you read _Witch Weekly_?”

Neville laughed. “No. Do you?”

“Well, Lavender puts them in the lavvy when she’s finished with them.”

“Oh, God, Seamus, I didn’t need to know that.”

Neville pulled a mock scowl. Seamus grinned back at him.

“Seems he’s pretty grateful to be able to come back here and know there’s not a price on his head. The last article I read said its the first time he’d been able to visit his parents’ graves.”

“Wow. I didn’t know that.” Neville looked at the cup in his hands. “Thanks for the coffee, Seamus. I’d better get back to work. There’s a pile of paperwork on my desk.”

“Of course, Nev. No worries. Pop in any time you fancy a chat, yeah?”

Neville smiled as he stood up. “Yeah.”

======================

Neville is sitting on the edge of the dancefloor, wondering why he’s so hesitant. If this were San Francisco, he’d have been out there an hour ago, slipping himself into the beat. It could be that this is Wizards’ music in a Wizards’ club, or maybe it’s just that he’s not on holiday anymore.

There is also the fact that the club is quite small, and the clientele more subdued than he’s grown used to in America. There aren’t as many gay Wizards in the whole of Britain as there are gay Muggles in the Castro district.

Neville sighs. He decides this was a mistake, and downs his drink. Before he can put down his glass, a cool hand takes hold of his elbow. He feels the flutter of fine hair against the back of his neck, lips brushing against his ear.

“Hello. Buy me a drink?”

The voice is English, cultured but with a hint of American west coast drawl around the edges. Neville smiles and turns slowly, looking into the grey eyes that meet his gaze.

“Why bother with foreplay?”

Draco wraps an arm around Neville’s waist and Neville feels laughter rising in his chest.

“Well,” says Draco, pausing to press his lips to Neville’s mouth, catching his lower lip between teeth as he draws back, “they do say a change is as good as a rest.”


End file.
